SingTel Optus
may team up with companies such as Google to offer targeted and specialised services to customers in a push to make more money from its mobile users.

“We need to offer what customers want to use rather than the blunt tool we’ve got today," Optus managing director
Vic McClelland
said. “You won’t have to pay for an average service but instead you’ll pay for the things you want to use and the things you don’t need to use so much you’ll pay less for."

He predicted the amount of internet data used by mobile smartphone and tablet users in Australia would increase by 50 per cent over the next 12 months.

But Mr McClelland said that Australia would reach the peak of its mobile download growth in two years.

The amount of data downloaded through mobile services rapidly rose last year. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported 19,636 terabytes of data was downloaded in the three months ending June 2013 alone – the equivalent to 4.6 million DVDs.

Vodafone
chief marketing office
Kim Clarke
said: “Our customers have been using over 60 per cent more data in 2013 than they did the year before. We therefore expect ­customers’ data ­consumption to ­ maintain at least the same rate of increase in 2014."

“I think the difference is because the US and Asia are traditionally high users of video-centric services."Optus’s Mr McClelland said mobile use had a total of four major “waves", the first being phone calls and the second being text messaging. Mobile data was the third wave but its peak in Australia was coming.

“We know in Australia it won’t peak for a couple of years but at some point revenue will start dropping off so we need to have something else coming in behind it," he said. “If you look at where the US is at . . . they’re at the point where it’s starting to peak and now they’re thinking of new business models that can drive more revenue."

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Specialised services at higher prices

Mr McClelland said the fourth wave would probably involve telcos like Optus working with companies like Google and YouTube to offer customers specialised services at higher prices. Users wanting to stream YouTube videos at faster speeds and higher qualities could pay extra while corporate users might order a package with more email downloads, he said.

The Optus executive also pointed to US telco AT&T’s recent announcement that it would offer sponsored data, which let companies pay for the data used by customers visiting their ­websites.

This means TV stations like Channel Nine could pay Optus to let customers watch its programs on its smartphones.

Optus would take the Silicon Valley approach to developing new ways of generating money, he said.

“If you have to fail you should fail early, fail fast and fail cheaply," he said. “Telcos often go out and say ‘we’ve got a two year plan with a $20 million budget’ . . . and this thing won’t be like that.

“We’re starting in financial year 2015 with some of those low-key, don’t-spend-so-much-money proof of concepts where we roll some stuff out."